Phil Mickelson declines to talk about PGA Tour-LIV Golf deal

Phil Mickelson celebrated the PGA-LIV merger on social media last week. But, for whatever reason, he’s keeping a low profile at the Los Angeles Country Club for the U.S. Open.

In fact, he kept such a low profile that he practiced elsewhere earlier in the week and didn’t show up at the course until Wednesday. Keep in mind, the US Open starts today. Some reporters did manage to ask an LIV/PGA question as Mickelson played a practice round. He declined to chat, but he did so politely.

“I’ll be happy to talk later,” Mickelson told the reporters. “I just don’t want to waste any energy on it at the beginning of the week.”

He added: “We had talked about doing something but I’d rather not do it this week,” in regards to the LIV-PGA situation. “I’d rather do it later, nothing’s happening anytime soon.”

Mickelson was grouped with a mix of LIV and PGA members for his practice round. He played with defending Masters champion Jon Rahm along with David Puig of the LIV and Alejandro Del Rey, who competes on the DP World Tour, which will also be part of the merger. All but Mickelson are from Spain.

According to Golf.com, Mickelson prepped for the Open — the third of the Grand Slams — near his home in Rancho Santa Fe. That’s about a two-hour drive from the LA Country Club.

Mickelson did manage a tweet after his round. But big surprise, there was no mention of the LIV/PGA tension.

LACC is one of the best courses in the world and is setup in spectacular fashion. This will be an exciting US Open for both players and fans. I can’t wait to get started.

— Phil Mickelson (@PhilMickelson) June 15, 2023

Good or bad, golf fans see Mickelson as the face of LIV. He was the first major golfer from the PGA to accept a nine-figure signing bonus. And he’s the captain of the HyFlyers, one of 12 teams in the LIV league. Plus, he didn’t mind throwing a virtual elbow on social media to troll the naysayers. But when it comes to actually playing golf, he keeps his head down.

He starts today’s round at 3:59 p.m. and will play with Padraig Harrington and Keegan Bradley. Although he’s finished as runnerup six times, Mickelson has yet to win the U.S. Open, one of golf’s coveted prizes.

Meanwhile, Brooks Koepka also is getting the same LIV/PGA queries. He’s easily the biggest star of LIV considering he won the PGA Championship earlier this month. He says he doesn’t pick up any blustery, hard feelings from the PGA proponents. They play golf and get along.

“I don’t think there’s really been too much animosity between players in general,” Koepka said during his pre-Open press conference. “I think that’s been a lot more constructed from the media side than the player side.

Koepka said he’s focused on “trying to prep for this week.”

“I’m justrying to make sure I come into a major championship — there’s four weeks a year I really care about and this is one of them, and I want to play well.

“So I wasn’t going to waste any time on news that happened last week. I saw it. I was sitting at Grove at the bar there having breakfast and I saw it on TV. Watched a little bit of the interview, and that was it. Just went out and practiced.”